Tham Lot Kong Lo - The longest cave in the world

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Well, probably not - 8km isn't all that long unless you get lost.

Getting there

I was a bit late getting up at Tha Khek and only just caught the 9:15 bus to Vieng Tham and, as the last passenger, had a plastic stool in the isle.

I changed buses at Vieng Tham and arrived at Na Hin at about 1pm. I jumped in the 2pm Seungtheauw for a very uncomfortable 4 hour ride to Kong Low. It started with about 10 of us in the back an got up to 23 at one stage - along with half a ton of cement and a refrigerator.
I guess we must have averaged about 10km/h as the trip was about 40 km. It certainly didn’t feel any faster than 10km/h.


Kong Lo Village
I was met at Kong Lo Village by the only lady who spoke English and she arranged a home-stay with an elderly widow in a pretty large two story house.

I had a brief walk around town but it was already pretty dark so there wasn’t much to see.
Dinner was pretty plain, but I managed to get through it with only one hand (they don’t use cutlery or chopsticks in these parts). After dinner I read and went to sleep.

My hosts are rather curious about me - naturally enough - and feel an obligation to make sure I look after myself. She holds my hand to show me anything and gives me pretty detailed instructions in sign language where, when, and how to shower. She also insists on doing everything for me, which isn’t such a bad trait.


Through the cave
The day after the bus ride from hell I sat on a flat boat with two locals and headed through the cave. Being a narrow flat boat, it's pretty unstable and you have to sit pretty still. Having a very sore ass from the bus ride, sitting still on a thin wooden slat just wasn't going to happen. Hats off to the boatmen though, who managed to retain both balance and patience. I was very impressed by the driver who himself was sitting rather awkwardly because he had to keep his toe in a hole in the bottom of the boat. At first I didn't know what the funny sound was, but after ten minutes or so I realized that the driver was constantly bailing with one hand, steering with the other, keeping the hole covered with one foot, and balancing with the other. Lucky he had a headlamp.

Every once in a while there would be some rapids over which we had to haul the boat. "We" being they; I was left to find my way up around the rapids in a huge cave and guided by my pathetically inadequate LED headlamp. Inevitably I would end up in the wrong spot or would turn off my lamp to see how long it took them to find me. They were very patient and had clearly dealt with a lot of kids before. After they found me or I got to the spot to board the flat floaty thing we would spend a minute or so bailing because he couldn't keep his finger in the hole while dragging the boat.

At the other end of the cave we stopped for an hour while I dried off. For some reason the boatmen thought I would step out of the boat onto the steps that had been carved into the bank for that purpose rather than choose to jump onto a slippery slope and slide down the mudbank into the water, teabagging my camera in the process. I’m not particularly impressed by my camera, but it did seem to survive a dunking quite well.

I had a beer while watching a team from one of the many NGOs involved in removing mines sweep the area around me for UXO. It never occurred to me that this nice little picnic spot would have mines and UXO, despite seeing a few craters near the village.

The trip back was a bit faster and our captain had found a bit of plastic that fitted the hole, so he didn’t have to bail much until he lost it half was through the cave.

Another trip from hell
Wednesday 8th February

Left on the 7:30am Songtheaw for Ban Na Hin. Actually, this is the only transport for the day out of Kong Lo. I was lucky in that I got to sit in the passanger seat for the trip, so the four hours over dirt tracks and through fords was bearable.

At Na Hin, I jumped on a Songtheaw for Vieng Than and got charged a fortune ($1.50) for the two hour ride. I then jumped on another two Songtheaws for the trip to Vientiane and had the sorest arse I’ve ever had. I had just spent 9 hours in little Hyndai trucks on Lao roads, mainly on the hard bench seats that only pretend to be covered.

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Comments

[anonymous]

wow! that's beautiful!!!!! :D

[anonymous]

wow! that's beautiful!!!!! :D

[lola]

whoa!
Wow!!!!!! That's beautiful!!!!! :D